Nebraska’s Miles on the NCAA Tournament: ‘I think we’ve earned our way in’

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After finishing their regular season with a victory over #9 Wisconsin on Sunday, Nebraska coach Tim Miles now feels his team has done enough to earn a NCAA Tournament bid.

“I think we’ve earned our way in,” Miles told The Jim Rome Show. “No doubt about it. I look at what we’ve done, and I sit there and say to myself, this team has won three Top 25 games, we are 8-8 against the Top 100 right now, I think we’re 40 in the RPI and 20-something in strength of schedule.”

Not bad for a team that started out 1-5 in conference and has never won an NCAA tournament game. But the Big 10 Coach of the Year says the culture around Nebraska basketball has changed.

“There’s never been a better time to be a Husker basketball coach. We’ve really reinvented ourselves,” says Miles. “We’ve got a state-of-the-art playing arena, a new practice facility that several NBA teams have been in to look at, and now we’ve left the Big 12 going to the Big 10, which I’ve grown up in the Big 10.”

Having the success that he’s had at Nebraska, Colorado State, and a number of other smaller schools in need of a turnaround, is definitely going to attract attention and suitors for Miles. But 47-year-old Miles says he wants to be in Lincoln for the long haul.

“You’ve talked to a lot of guys like me,” the head coach said to Rome. “Hot one day and cooked the next. I don’t want to be a flash in the pan here at Nebraska. I want to be one of those guys where we’re on the scene for a long time and you can expect Nebraska is a team you have to deal with on the national level – that’s our goal.”